I am interested in futures and options because

I will spend the rest of my life in the future

and I want to improve my options.
Professor Avraham Kamara

FIN 561 - FINANCIAL FUTURES AND OPTIONS

SPRING 2015

PROFESSOR AVRAHAM (AVI) KAMARA

Office: 526 PACCAR Hall
Tel.: 543-0652
E-mail: kamara@u.washington.edu
OFFICE HOURS: Mon. 5:30-6:30 PM, Wed. 5:30-6:30 PM, and by appointment.

This course provides a comprehensive overview of futures markets and options

markets. We will analyze the pricing of futures contracts and options as well as various
price relationships and review available empirical evidence concerning these markets.
We will give particular attention to risk management by hedging. We will compare
Futures, forwards, swaps and option contracts, and study alternative investment and
risk management strategies.

COURSE RESPONSIBILITIES
Students will be graded on the basis of:
1. HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENTS AND PROJECTS (EVERY
CLASS) (can be submitted individually or in groups of up to FIVE
students, and either typed or handwritten). (TOTAL WEIGHT of 20%)

2. TWO EXAMS (that must be done individually, of course).

(TOTAL WEIGHT OF 80%)

3. OPTION: STUDENTS CAN GET A BONUS OF UP TO 10%

FOR VALUABLE CONTRIBUTION TO CLASS PARTICIPATION.
(A VALUABLE RISK MANAGEMENT STRATEGY!)
 EXAM DATES and WEIGHTS
1. EXAM #1:
A TAKE-HOME EXAM ON THE WEEKEND AFTER THE
CLASS OF WEDNESDAY, April 29, 2015.
A WEIGHT OF 40%.

2. EXAM #2
A TAKE-HOME EXAM ON THE WEEKEND AFTER THE
LAST CLASS OF THE QUARTER.
A WEIGHT OF 40%.

THERE WILL BE NO MAKE-UP EXAMS!

THE HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENTS ARE ONLINE ON CANVAS

LOOK INSIDE FILES.
I WILL ANNOUNCE THE DUE DATES DURING CLASS.

Wise people realize how little they understand about life,

themselves, and the world around them.
Improve yourself by learning from others knowledge, so that
you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.
Socrates (469399 B.C.E)

Teach your tongue to say I dont know and you shall

progress.
Moses Maimonides (1135 or 1138 1204)

Moses Maimonides (Rabbi Moshe Ben Maimon, RAMBAM) - A Jewish rabbi,

physician, and philosopher in the Middle Ages, who also influenced the non-Jewish world.
Although his writings on Jewish law and ethics were met with Jewish opposition during his
lifetime, he was posthumously acknowledged as one of the foremost philosophers in Jewish
history. Today, his works and views are considered a cornerstone of Jewish thought and study.

A. Kamara, FIN 561, p. 2

 How do you calculate the grade credit for your homework assignments?

CURRENTLY, ALL THE QUESTIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS ARE REQUIRED.

However, some homework assignments CAN have required and optional questions.
The change in the designation of a particular question from required to optional will be
announced in class depending on the material studied in the class. Otherwise, the
question remains a required question.
The optional questions give you bonus points. You will NOT lose any homework credit
towards your grade because you did not answer any optional question. You will lose
homework credit towards your grade ONLY IF you do not get full credit on the required
questions of the assignments, and do not have enough bonus points to offset that loss.
The score that you will get for each homework assignment is your total points for that
assignment. If you solve an optional question, your total points for that assignment can
exceed the total required points. The bonus points for optional questions will help you in
case you lose any required homework points on that assignment or any other
assignment.

The MAXIMUM grade credit that you can get for your homework assignments,
even with bonus points, is 20% (= 20 grade points of 100 total grade points).
Example: Suppose we have two homework assignments only. Each has a required 100 points, and the
first assignment also has 20 bonus points. The maximum number of required homework points is 200.
As long as you get a total of AT LEAST 200 homework points (required plus bonus), you will get the
maximum of 20 grade points, and no more than 20 grade points.
Suppose you get 120 points (100 required points + 20 bonus points) on the first assignment and 100
points on the second assignment. You will have a total of 220 points. You will get 20 grade points, and
no more than 20 grade points.
Suppose you get 100 (required or required plus bonus) points on the first assignment and 100 points on
the second assignment. You will have a total of 200 points. You will get 20 grade points.
Suppose you get 120 points on the first assignment and 80 points on the second assignment. You will
have a total of 200 points. You will get 20 grade points.
Suppose you get a total of 100 points (required or required plus bonus) on the first assignment and 80
points on the second assignment. You will have a total of 180 points. You will get 20 (180/200) = 18
grade points.

It is important to understand that the bonus points on homework

assignments count towards the 20% homework part of the grade only.
They cannot be used towards any other part of the grade. That is, they
will not help you with points lost on an exam.

Solving optional questions and getting bonus points is a good risk management (and
learning ) strategy. It reduces the risk of not getting the full 20 grade points.

A. Kamara, FIN 561, p. 3

REQUIRED READINGS:
FIN 561 LECTURE NOTES:
1. VOLUME I - FUTURES, FORWARDS AND SWAPS.
2. VOLUME II - OPTIONS.
The two volumes have my lecture notes for the entire course.
Volume I is available for purchase in the University Bookstore.
Volume II will be available for purchase in the University Bookstore later.

PLEASE READ THE ASSIGNED LECTURE NOTES BEFORE and,

AGAIN, AFTER THE LECTURE!
THERE IS NO REQUIRED TEXTBOOK.

You MAY wish to buy the following RECOMMENDED (optional) TEXTBOOK:

John C. Hull, Options, Futures and other Derivatives, 9th edition, 2015, Prentice-Hall.

You may wish to use the following book:

John C. Hull, Fundamentals of Futures and Options Markets, Either 8th edition
(2014) or 7th edition (2011), Prentice-Hall.
(The 7th edition is on reserve at Foster library - for FIN 461.)

Hulls textbook comes with a software CD.

However, Hull also has online software (free, and does not require the textbook) for
Excel (called DerivaGem for Excel), which calculates option prices.
You can download it from http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/~hull/software/

Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME Group), Chicago Board of Options (CBOE),

Futures Industry Association (FIA), Options Clearing Corporation (OCC), and Options
Industry Council have interesting material (often free of charge)on pricing and trading
strategies using futures and options online at:
www.cmegroup. com, www.futuresindustry.org, www.cboe.com,
www.optionsclearing.com, www.optionseducation.org.

In particular, CBOE has interesting online material, including EDUCATION TOOLS

(home>>education>> education tools) that you can use online or some you can or
download at no cost,
at http://www.cboe.com/LearnCenter/RCTools.aspx
The EDUCATION TOOLS includes an OPTIONS PRICING CALCULATOR for both
American and European options.

A. Kamara, FIN 561, p. 4

Emanuel Derman is one of the worlds leading experts on financial-derivatives modeling.
He had a very distinguished career on Wall Street, at Goldman Sachs and briefly at
Salomon Brothers, from 1985 until he retired in 2002.
He is currently a professor at Columbia University and the Director of its program in
financial engineering (he received a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Columbia University
in 1973.)
He writes about financial-modeling and risk management related issues on his site:
http://www.emanuelderman.com
The following Opinion from January 29, 2014, is a nice, simple, way to describe most of what
we will study in this course.
In Fin 460 and 560 Investments, you study points #1 and #2.
In our course, we will study point #3 (Hedging) and the sentences below it.

Financial Valuation Modeling in a Nutshell: Dilution, Diversification and Hedging

Every couple of years I make some attempt to condense the principles of financial
modeling:
All securities bear risk.
The essential problem of financial modeling is to determine the expected return that
goes with a given estimated (future) risk.
To determine the expected return of a given risky security, note that there are three
ways of lowering its risk:
1. Dilution: combining the security with a riskless bond;
2. Diversification: combining the security with other uncorrelated
securities;
3. Hedging; combining the security with another anti-correlated security to
cancel one aspect of its risk.

If by these means you can lower the estimated risk of a portfolio that contains the
security to zero, it is logical that you should expect to earn the return of a riskless
bond, assumed known. The expected return of the given security can then be pinned
*
down from this constraint.
[The paragraph above describes The No-Arbitrage Pricing Method.]
*
- All of this is perfectly reasonable a priori. Where it fails in real life is that one cannot
estimate risk correctly.
[It is crucial to remember this footnote when working with financial models
to price securities and manage risk.]
http://www.emanuelderman.com/writing/entry/financial-valuation-modeling-in-a-nutshell-dilution-
diversification-and-hed

A. Kamara, FIN 561, p. 5

 COURSE OUTLINE
WE WILL DEVIATE FROM THE OUTLINE DEPENDING ON THE PACE THE CLASS
FEELS COMFORTABLE WITH.

PLEASE READ THE ASSIGNED MATERIAL BEFORE and,

AGAIN, AFTER THE LECTURE!
Articles, which I have written on issues related to class topics, are designated by an asterisk.
They are available on Blackboard. They are NOT required for the class.

THE LECTURE NOTES FOR THE TOPICS BELOW ARE IN FIN561 VOLUME 1.

1. Introduction to Futures, Forwards and Options Contracts.

* Kamara, Delivery Structure of Futures Contracts. In The New Palgrave Dictionary of
Money and Finance, edited by P. Newman, M. Milgate and J. Eatwell, Macmillan Press
Limited, London, 1992.

2. Arbitrage in Futures and Spot Markets and the Pricing of Futures Contracts
* Kamara, Market Trading Structures and Asset Pricing: Evidence From Treasury Bill
Markets, Review of Financial Studies, Winter 1988, pp. 357-375.
* Eldor, Hauser, Kahn and Kamara, The Nontradability Premium of Derivatives
Contracts Journal of Business, Vol. 79, no. 4, July 2006, pp. 2067-2097.
* Kamara, The Behavior of Futures Prices, Financial Analysts Journal, July-August
1984, pp. 68-75.
* Kamara, Forecasting Accuracy and Development of a Financial Market: The Treasury
Bill Futures Market, Journal of Futures Markets, August 1990, pp. 397-405.

3. Hedging with futures contracts.

* Kamara, Issues in Futures Markets: A Survey, Journal of Futures Markets, Fall 1982,
pp. 261-270.
* Kamara and Siegel, Optimal Hedging in Futures Contracts with Multiple Delivery
Specifications, Journal of Finance, September 1987, pp. 1007-1021.
* Kamara, Production Flexibility, Stochastic Separation, Hedging, and Futures Prices,
Review of Financial Studies, Vol. 6, No. 4, Winter 1993, pp. 935-957.

A. Kamara, FIN 561, p. 6

 MANAGING INTEREST RATE RISK:
4. Short-Term Interest Rate Futures
* Kamara, The Relation Between Default-Free Interest Rates and Economic Growth is
Stronger Than You Think, Journal of Finance, Vol. 52, No. 4, September 1997, pp.
1681-1694.
* Hess and Kamara, Conditional Time-Varying Interest Rate Risk Premium: Evidence
from the Treasury Bill Futures Market, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Vol. 37,
no, 4, August 2005, pp. 679-698.

5. Interest Rate Swaps

6. Duration and Convexity.

7. Long-Term Interest Rate Futures.

8. Stock Index Futures.

* Kamara, New Evidence on the Monday Seasonal in Stock Returns, Journal of
Business, Vol. 70, No. 1, January 1997, pp. 63-84.
* Kamara, The Effects of Futures Trading on the Stability of Standard and Poors 500
Returns, Journal of Futures Markets, Vol. 12, No. 6, December 1992, pp. 645-658 (with
Thomas W. Miller Jr. and Andrew F. Siegel).
* Kamara, Lou and Sadka, Has The US Stock Market Become More Vulnerable Over
Time? Financial Analysts Journal, Vol. 66, no. 1, January/February 2010, pp. 41-52.

A. Kamara, FIN 561, p. 7

 PART 1
FUTURES, FORWARDS and SWAP
contracts

I. Pricing
(No-Arbitrage)
"Generic"

II. Risk management

Stock Interest (hedging)
index rates Commodities

Riskless
Hedges Price risk

Hedges Short-
with Basis term
Systemati
risk interest SWAPS
c equity
rate risk
risk
Duration,
convexity

Long-term
interest rate risk

A. Kamara, FIN 561, p. 8

THE LECTURE NOTES FOR THE TOPICS BELOW ARE IN FIN561 VOLUME 2.

9. Introduction to Options Markets. Basic Trading Strategies.

10. Hedging with Options.

11. Put-Call Parity.

* Kamara and Miller, Daily and Intradaily Tests of European Put-Call Parity, Journal of
Financial and Quantitative Analysis, December 1995, pp. 519-539.

Options calculators, which are available online from the Chicago Board of Options or the Options Industry
Council, are useful for both the Binomial and Black Scholes options pricing models that we will study next,
and for both European and American Options:
http://www.cboe.com/TradTool/OptionCalculator.asp
http://www.optionseducation.org/resources/options_calc.jsp

12. The Binomial Options Pricing Model European Options.

13. The Black-Scholes Option Pricing Model. Implied volatility. The Greeks.

14. Pricing and Optimal Exercise of American Call and Put Options.

15. Risk-Neutral Valuation.

A FUTURE WITH OPTIONS - DON'T LEAVE SCHOOL WITHOUT IT!

A. Kamara, FIN 561, p. 9

 PART 2
CALL and PUT
OPTIONS contracts

I. Static
(Today and on
options
expiration day)

II. Dynamic
Risk (Today and over
management No-arbitrage the entire life of
Basic strategies strategies pricing the options)
(put-call parity)

Binomial
option pricing
model Black-Scholes
option pricing
model
Pricing and
exercising
American
Options Risk-neutral
Valuation

A. Kamara, FIN 561, p. 10

 OPTIONAL READING LIST
PART 1 FUTURES and SWAPS
John C. Hull, Options, Futures and other Derivatives, 9th Edition, 2015, Prentice Hall.

John C. Hull, Options, Futures and other Derivatives, 8th Edition, 2012, Prentice Hall.

The same Sections in either book.

1. Introduction to Futures, Forwards and Options Contracts.

Ch. 1.
Ch. 2: 2.1; 2.2; 2.4-2.7; 2.11.
2. Arbitrage in Futures and Spot Markets and the Pricing of Futures Contracts
Ch. 4: 4.1; 4.2;
Ch. 5: 5.1-5.6; 5.8;
Ch. 3: 3.5;
Ch. 5: 5.9:
Ch. 2: 2.3;
Ch. 6: 6.1-6.3.
3. Hedging with futures contracts.
Ch. 3: 3.1-3.4.
4. Short-Term Interest Rate Futures
Ch. 6: 6.3.
5. Interest Rate Swaps
Ch. 7: 7.1-7.3.
6. Duration and convexity.
Ch. 4: 4.8 and 4.9.
Ch. 6: 6.4.
7. Long-Term Interest Rate Futures.
Ch. 6: 6.5 and Summary.
8. Stock Index Futures.
Ch. 3: 3.5 and Appendix.

A. Kamara, FIN 561, p. 11

 OPTIONAL READING LIST: PART 2 OPTIONS
John C. Hull, Options, Futures and other Derivatives, 9th Edition, 2015, Prentice Hall.
9. Introduction to Options Markets. Basic Trading Strategies.
Ch. 1.
Ch. 10: 10.1-10.8.; Ch. 12: 12.4.
10. Hedging with Options.
Ch. 1: 1.7; Ch. 12: 12.2.
11. Put-Call Parity.
Ch. 11: 11.2; 11.4; 11.5-11.6 (w/o Bounds); 11.7; 11.1.
12. The Binomial Options Pricing Model European Options.
Ch. 13: 13.1, 13.3, 13.4, 13.6-13.9.
13. The Black-Scholes Option Pricing Model. Implied volatility. The Greeks.
Ch. 15: 15.1-15.4, 15.8-15.9;
Ch. 11: 11.1; Ch. 20: 20.3; Ch. 19: 19.4.
14. Pricing and Optimal Exercise of American Call and Put Options.
Ch. 13: 13.5. Ch. 21: 21.1-21.4.
15. Risk-Neutral Valuation.
Ch. 13: 13.2; Ch. 15: 15.7; Ch. 21: 21.1.

John C. Hull, Options, Futures and other Derivatives, 8th Edition, 2012, Prentice Hall.
9. Introduction to Options Markets. Basic Trading Strategies.
Ch. 1: 1.5-1.7, 1.8-1.10.
Ch. 9: 9.1-9.8.; Ch. 11: 11.4.
10. Hedging with Options.
Ch. 1: 1.7; Ch. 11: 11.2.
11. Put-Call Parity.
Ch. 10: 10.2; 10.4; 10.5-10.6 (w/o Bounds); 10.7; 10.1.
12. The Binomial Options Pricing Model European Options.
Ch. 12: 12.1, 12.3, 12.4, 12.6-12.9.
13. The Black-Scholes Option Pricing Model. Implied volatility. The Greeks.
Ch. 14: 14.1-14.4, 14.8-14.9;
Ch. 10: 10.1; Ch. 19: 19.3; Ch. 18: 18.4.
14. Pricing and Optimal Exercise of American Call and Put Options.
Ch. 12: 12.5. Ch. 20: 20.1-20.4.
15. Risk-Neutral Valuation.
Ch. 12: 12.2; Ch. 14: 14.7; Ch. 20: 20.1.
Ch. 20: 20.1.

A. Kamara, FIN 561, p. 12

 A Short Bio
AVRAHAM (Avi) KAMARA
Professor of Finance
William W. Alberts Professor
University of Washington, Michael G. Foster School of Business
Ph.D., Columbia University, New York, 1986.
Professor Kamara has taught courses on financial risk management, futures and options
contracts, real options, capital markets and security valuation in the MBA, executives, and
undergraduate programs at the University of Washington. He also taught at Columbia
University, UCLA, and overseas.
During 2002-2006, Professor Kamara served as the Chairman of the Department of Finance
and Business Economics at the University of Washington.
Professor Kamara has served as an expert advisor on financial products and risk
management for several companies and law firms (for example, locally, Safeco and Darigold,
among others). He has also worked with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the
USA, and with foreign governments/companies.
Professor Kamara has published articles in the Journal of Business, Journal of Finance,
Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of
Financial Markets, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Future Markets, and Financial
Analysts Journal, as well as other outlets. Professor Kamaras research focuses on risk
management, derivatives contracts (futures, swaps, and options), and commodities, equity and
fixed-income markets.

Created by Tad Sommerville, TMMBA506, Spring 2001.

A. Kamara, FIN 561, p. 13